Greenwich

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This was the first time I ever took a Riverboat service on the Thames river while in London! It's just basically a riverboat that takes you up and down the Thames and is another alternative in London's awesome public transportation system. It also has different stops for you to get on and off of and we had a day pass that was around 9 GBP which is really good especially because the tube or bus in 1.90 GBP per trip if you have an oyster card or 4 GBP/ trip without an oyster card. Anyways these boats have really cushiony seats just like a coach bus has. There is a bar/coffee bar on the boat so you can have snacks and a beverage and also toilet services. Some people even had their pets along with them. As soon as we walked off the boat we traveled over to the Old Royal Naval College. This magnificent building built in 1751 used to be a hospital and then became a naval training centre for officers from around the world until 1998. Now it is a museum and there is a chapel across from the museum's entrance. When we went there it was a Sunday and church was in session. I stepped in the back for a moment to peak at the church and it was just a breathtaking as every other church I have seen thus far. In the Naval College section there was a memorial to Lord Nelson from the Battle of Trafalgar and gorgeous murals all over the place, especially the ceilings. They had tables of glass so you didn't have to strain your neck and look up at the ceiling, instead you could just look at the table. Next we went to the Royal Observatory where you could stand on the Prime Meridian Line of the world, I was able to stand in two hemisphere's at once the Eastern and the Western! It's also the center of world time! It was quite an experience especially because it was on the top of a large hill that was something else to climb. Right next to the observatory they have an astronomy center to look into which had some really neat displays.

Up next was the National Maritime Museum! This is where I saw tons of things related to sailing, ships, and boats. Everything from the tools they used, actual boats, displays on the lifestyle, and the materials that were being transported. There was also information on the Transatlantic Slave trade and they showed some of the whips they used and the materials they transported. It definitely was a sobering display and showed how Britain's have a different view of the Slave trade as more business like than anything else. The coolest thing though was a big collection of model ships. All of them of course were really detailed but the size of them were outstanding. Some of them were over 5 feet long! It was time for lunch after this museum and dressing up as passengers to the Americas we ventured over to a market place. For lunch I had this really good beef and potatoes with onions on it and then it also came with this pastry that was called a pie but was more like a circular pastry that was really fluffy and soaked up the juice. It was really good and the beef was more like steak than roast beef. On our way back to the riverboat we stopped at a sweet shoppe and there was so much and it was really cheap! I bought strawberry and banana marshmallows that were in twisted shapes, rainbow colored marshmallows, gummies that were sour, sweet, and in fruit shapes or tape, flying saucers, a chocolate sucker and mint chocolate fudge. Flying saucers are a chewy, powdery dis-solvable sugar paste that has like nerds in the middle of it and in the shoppe they also had Jack Daniels fudge! It was so good and a great end to yet another sight seeing tour.

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